Escaped steer hits car

Press, 9 November 1988, Page 12

Escaped steer hits car

PA Wellington James O’Neill was driving quietly along Upper Hutt’s Fergusson Drive in his brand new car when he was rammed by a runaway steer. “It came belting out of this motel like something from a Spanish bullfight and charged straight into the side of my car,” said a shaken Mr O’Neill, of Karori. “It bounced over the bonnet and landed in a heap in the middle of the road. I thought the poor thing was dead. Then it leaped up and charged off.”

The steer, which yesterday escaped from Witako Prison farm, caused about $2OOO damage to the week-old Ford Fairmont Ghia. The steer hit three other vehicles in the course of a wild crosstown chase which took it through the corridors of an Upper Hutt primary school. The badly injured beast was finally cornered and shot by police on the advice of a veterinarian.

The Oxford Crescent school’s principal, Mrs Dianne Patterson, said the steer lumbered into the rear of the grounds and got into the main corridor.

“The first to realise what was happening was our school librarian, June Gribben, who heard an almighty crash,” Mrs Patterson said. “The noise was the animal crashing its head through a reinforced wire window at the end of the corridor.

The steer, dripping blood from its encounter with the window, galloped out the front door and across the road into the rear garden of the school caretaker, Mr Andy Wardle.

The pursuing posse by now included the police, Ministry of Transport, the Fire Brigade, Upper Hutt City Council staff, Witako Prison staff and a vet. The chase continued into Whitley Ave where the steer was cornered at last.